How To Get A Job In Influencer Marketing

[00:00:00] Jessy: Hi everyone and welcome to the WIIM Podcast. Women in Influencer Marketing is a first of its kind exclusive networking group made up of inspirational women. This podcast is where we explore influencer marketing and get real about women in business. Find us wherever you download podcasts, and of course, you can always find us at iamwiim.com. That’s iamwiim.com. 

Hey guys. Welcome back to the Women in Influencer Marketing podcast. My name is Jessy Grossman and I’m super excited to be here with you today. So if you are listening to this podcast on a day that it drops, today is our LA experience. 

Oh my God. A lot of these episodes are recorded in advance. This intro is as well. I can imagine my future self running around like a ticket with my head cut off. Am trying to put all the finishing touches on our event. So we put so much time and energy into making these experiences incredible for you and really, truly one of a kind. So I am so excited to bring these to you.

We have the LA one on January 10th. We have the New York one on February 8th, and we’ve got other cities around the country being scheduled and as we speak, coming to hopefully Chicago, hopefully Miami, hopefully San Francisco, and a ton of other locations. 

So if there is a city that you would like to have a Wiim experience at, email me you guys. It’s jessy@iamwiim.com, and of course it’s Jesse with the Y. Send me an email and tell me where you want us to go to. I wanna hear from you guys, so let me know. 

The LA experience and the New York experience, which are the ones that are coming up next. You can get your tickets online at iamwiim.com/events. Everything will be listed, all those links and everything in the show notes. Guests, are $50 a piece because members always get discounted tickets and early access to all of our ticket sales and all that good stuff. So members only pay 10 bucks. Really barely even covering our costs. 

We have incredible sponsors as well for this event. So I wanna give a huge thank you to Shine Talent Group for lending us their beautiful house guys. We’re hosting this in this incredible house in West Hollywood. It’s beautiful and I could not be more grateful for them generously lending us their house guys, their house , and Magic Links is another sponsor of this event along.

Along with others, who are sponsoring a raffle. So all the information is on our website. Big things to our sponsors and big things to all of you because of your enthusiasm and wanting to enjoy these types of events. If you enjoy them, we will continue, pushing them out.

So this week’s episode is a solo episode. You guys, you have me and we are gonna be talking all about something that my cousin actually inspired, which is how to land a job in influencer marketing. She is awesome. Just graduated college not that long ago, and it’s a crazy wild job market.

So she has been on the hunt for a role for a few months now. Definitely getting a little discouraged and I’m trying to just help her along and show her that, you are definitely not the only one who’s been trying to get a role, in influencer marketing and not necessarily succeeding right away. So I wanted to bring some practical advice and the best that I can, having done, some recruiting in the space for, the past year and a half and also, of course, just experiencing what I have through wiim because, so much of the networking that happens is to get a new role. So I’m gonna be sharing with you guys some tips and tricks for landing your dream job in influencer marketing.

 All right, you guys so I’m so excited to be sharing with you how to land your dream job and influencer marketing, and this is really advice whether you are at the beginning of your career or you’ve been in influencer marketing for 15 plus years and just looking for your next role.

It’s something that not enough people talk about, first of all. So I thought that dedicating an entire episode of talking about this would be really helpful and beneficial to someone. Probably lots of people, my hope at least. And I also think that this conversation will be relevant whether you’re looking for a role now, your future self is looking for a role, or if you’re looking to hire people. My goal is to make this relevant for, anybody on in influencer marketing really. So, let’s get into it.

All right. Like I mentioned, my cousin recently graduated from college and she’s been looking for a role just generally in marketing for the past few months. Not having much luck, even getting very many interviews and I am never one to really sugarcoat anything. 

She definitely inspired this conversation. I love you Hannah. And, I think that if we just get real about it and we talk about the process of looking for a role, I think there’s a lot that we can gleam here. 

So tip number one, for somebody who is maybe like new to the industry and doesn’t know very many people, network, network, network. So for somebody especially young in their career or just out of school, I recognize that alone kind of means nothing, right?

It’s like okay, so I network like with who? I don’t have a network like and how, like I don’t know what to say, I’m just a former college student, basically five minutes outta college. What do I do? So I wanna be like very specific about what I mean. 

So we are brainstorming, and talking about you can go to industry conferences. And, you can get, some of them give student discounts as well, which I think is great or Wiim as an organization we give away free tickets to conferences every so often. We just did that for Creator Economy Live. So congrats to the two winners who won those tickets on our Instagram!

But getting some tickets to an industry conference where there’s gonna be a lot of people there in the industry and just immersing yourself in it. First of all, it’s gonna be an incredible learning opportunity. So you can like, learn stuff about marketing that they didn’t probably teach you in college, but, but hearing it firsthand from leading professionals in the industry.

So taking a peek at who’s on panels, who’s moderating, who’s in the audience, say hello to the person on your left. Say hello to the person on your right. And if that’s not enough, follow some hashtags for that event on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and see who’s there in person and if you catch people, you’re gonna hopefully be saying, introducing yourself in person and saying hello, my name is Jessy Grossman and I just graduated from college. I’m so fascinated by marketing and I’m just like, dying to learn as much as I can here and just meet a bunch of people. So, I’m excited to meet you. What’s your name? What’s your story?

That alone will just get you so many connections. Connect with as many of those people on LinkedIn as you can so you can follow up after the fact. So you’re gonna be doing a bunch of in-person connecting, but it really doesn’t end there, like I said, following the hashtag for the event is huge because people will start posting about the event before it happens and using the hashtag. So that’s a nice way to be able to sort of target certain people that will be in attendance because they posted about it and you can reach out to them ahead of time even and say, hey, like here’s a little about me or not just say, hey, I’m attending the event. I see you are too. I’d love to, say hello and introduce. 

When are you free? When can we meet. Connect with them immediately on LinkedIn or wherever it is that they posted, and, start that connection. But then when you’re there at the event, that’s for the most part, when people are gonna be posting hey, I’m at, CES 2023 hashtag, I think that’s their hashtag.

And you’re gonna see a whole flood, a flooded feed of people, to connect with. So you reach out to them, connect immediately with all of them. And when I say connect, like connect on LinkedIn with them. Don’t just follow by the way, but ask for a connection so that hopefully they’ll accept and you’ll be able to have a more direct line of communication with them.

But then say A, I’m here and I’d love to meet you in person if since you’re here as well, but if not, there are so many opportunities to have conversations after the fact. So start a little dialogue. Introduce yourself, say why you’re excited.

People ask like, how do I break the ice? I feel uncomfortable. Networking isn’t my thing. That’s all you have to do is what I just described. Say that you’re excited to be there, or say that you’re nervous. Say oh, your company is so cool what you guys are doing. I’m like, I was a little nervous to talk to you today. What do you guys have planned for 2023?

That’s it, or what’s another one that I could suggest? I looked on your LinkedIn and you’ve been at such interesting companies which one of them has been your favorite? How are you enjoying this conference? What was your favorite panel? My favorite panel was this.

Whatever it is. If you’re traveling oh gosh, I’ve never been to the city before. I’ve never been to Vegas. I’m using CES as an example. Or I come here once a year and it’s just for CES. This is such a cool city. I’m love of my hotel. Not which hotel are you staying in. It can probably be perceived in a weird way. But what’s your favorite hotel been? Have you been to this conference before? 

The list goes on and on. But I am trying to think of like actual questions that you could ask people to break the ice cause I do know that a lot of you guys struggle with that. So those are a few, the follow ups are really important, whether you meet them in person or not, the goal would be A connect with them, not follow. On social media, ideally LinkedIn than probably Instagram.

The next ideal is to, continue the conversations and to share something personal about yourself, because I find that, oh, the weather in Vegas, isn’t this X, Y, Z, or oh my, like generic stuff like that is not memorable cause people don’t know how to have conversations, and that’s what everybody says, right? They talk about the weather.

So don’t talk about the weather. If you’re can avoid it and instead think about what’s a little memorable or different about you. I’m gonna think about a few examples off the top of my head for me, I might say like I have a networking group in influencer marketing, like that’s unique, right? Or you could talk about like the panel that I’m moderating or the panel that I’m speaking at. If you happen to be talking on a panel or doing a talk or a speech or whatever, invite as many people as possible cause that’s also, a great memorable thing. 

But something memorable about yourself and a little bit unique. Of course, you want it to be appropriate, but something that sets you apart that you could infuse into your introduction or your conversation is key. I think it’s huge. So try to be memorable, but still yourself, be as grounded as you can.

The other thing I think is people are just simply intimidated by speaking to strangers, which I totally appreciate. If you could believe it, maybe this will make you feel better like, I literally own a networking organization and I am very uncomfortable speaking with strangers.

I can go on and on work on this podcast, but I’m literally talking to myself right now. No pressure, right? Like I can edit this podcast like I just wanna be real with you guys. But if I go to an event, let’s say like this LA event that we’re hosting tonight. If you’re listening to this podcast on the day that we drop this, I am much more comfortable in small groups, so one-on-one situations or maybe a small group of like me and two others. But once you get me in an entire room full of people, I don’t know, I get overwhelmed and I wanna make a really good impression. And the pressure’s high cause the time is short. But, all that pressure, I buckle a little bit under it. 

So I own a networking group and I still experience those things all the time. I think they’ve gotten better, but I very much feel nervous and less comfortable in big group situation. So with all that being said, you’re certainly not alone. And I use the strategy of enthusiasm.

I geek out over stuff. So, I would go to a conference and say oh my God, this pale that I saw, it was so good. And like they were talking about this and that, and using that to parlay into a conversation about whatever topic it was that they were talking about at the panel and just having a really, I don’t know, like an interesting conversation about the industry, that could be an interesting thing to talk about.

Or it could be something personal slightly, like in preparation for this event, I like started using my cricket. So I was gifted a cricket, in 2022, and I hadn’t used it yet, so I just started getting out of all the accessories and watching some YouTube videos to try to learn like, how the heck to even use this thing.

And I enjoy like crafts and using my hands and stuff like that. That could be an interesting conversation to have, like you try to figure out by asking questions, what the other person is gonna relate to and listen just as much if not even more than you speak. So I do think that asking questions of the other person, and having those queued up is probably the most important thing.

So, what brings you to this conference? Have you been here before? What’s been your favorite panel? What were you hoping to get out of this conference? And then stuff that’s just a little more friendly and personal and not business all the time is good. So what’s your favorite thing to do in Vegas while you’re here? Have you been to Vegas before? I don’t know. Things like that. Questions go a long way. It brings down people’s walls and inhibitions and I think it’s a great way to just connect on a human level. 

So other ways, beyond in-person experiences or conferences or events, to connect with others so that you could get your dream job at Influencer Marketing. I think that LinkedIn is the most underutilized social platform there is. 

Yes, I’m a LinkedIn creator and yes, I am on there all the time. I bring it up because I practice what I preach. I think LinkedIn is incredible. So everyone that you wanna meet professionally is on LinkedIn. I will say this before I even talk about anything to proactively do on LinkedIn, and how to reach out, you should optimize your profile on LinkedIn.

So actually, if you go to our website, Iamwiim.com/linkedin, there are some really helpful tips about how to optimize your profile, what you should be optimizing, and how to make it look really sharp.

So for example, switching it over to creator mode allows you to add a little link in bio Switching it over to creator mode also allows you to add hashtags so you could be pretty clear about what your intention is for being on LinkedIn. So for example, you could put hashtag influencer marketing in your bio.

So putting in hashtag influencer marketing in your bio, that’s possible if you’re in creator mode. There’s a lot of things that creator mode allows you to do and I know that they’re just gonna be adding more and more things, which is great.

So really optimizing your profile to make it memorable and really descriptive of you who you are as a professional and as a human being, I think is really key. Getting a great photo is something that is really really important as well.

So all those things. Plus of course, like filling out. You know your work history and making sure you’ve got like detailed bullet points of what you did at those roles, not just the name of the company and your title and how long you were there. That’s like the bare minimum.

And if you were one of my clients that I was, recruiting you into a role, I would tell you before even submit your resume to a company, you gotta fill out, what you did at those companies on your LinkedIn profile. 

So those are a few things to keep in mind. But again, we have this whole page written out, iamwiim.com/linkedin, where it gives you some more tips and tricks on how to optimize your LinkedIn account.

So then once you’ve got that, optimize your profile looks really good. I want you to be, linkedin obsessed. Who do you look up to in the industry? Follow them, and then hopefully once you start getting some connections, then those third connections turn into second connections and it opens up the floodgates.

And connecting with someone is not enough, I highly recommend when you send a connection request, sending a note as well, cause you could do both simultaneously and making it something that doesn’t feel spammy, cause LinkedIn can be that and no one likes that. No one wants to feel as if they’re being spammed.

So if you can personalize your note, the more the better you know hey, Jessy, been, listening to your podcast for a while and like love the conversation about influencer marketing and looking forward to connecting. If anyone mentions my podcast on LinkedIn, I always look closely at it, whether I accept it or not. 

Sometimes it’s like, hey, love your podcast. Do you need an editor? Or, do you need a social media person? Like it’s just people looking for work. They probably haven’t even listened to this podcast. So just, something personal about them or love that you’re working at X, Y, Z company, like put in their company name. 

Just make it feel personalized and that goes a long way. And then once they accept, make sure your notifications are turned on on the LinkedIn app, on your phone, because as soon as somebody connects with you, they’re on their phone at that moment or on their computer on LinkedIn, and I want you to follow up with a message. Hopefully they’ll message you back if you sent a note, but if not, say, hey, I’m so glad we’re connected now and then open up the dialogue from there. So that’s a huge thing.

Basically, when you’re looking for a job, you want to have a network of people around you before you need something from them. You need to foster those relationships in times when you’re not in need. Nobody wants to feel used So do this in preparation for the ask that may come later.

And one of the final things, tips and tricks that I wanna give you guys, which will help you in landing your dream job in influencer marketing. This tip was a happy accident that, I personally experienced. There were years that I wanted to be on stage at these conferences and I wanted to give it a keynote you know or on a panel, or at the very least, like a moderator spot, but I just didn’t know enough people and no one knew me, so nobody invited me to be on. 

So here’s what I noticed that I did one time, and you guys should do it too. I would go to all those conferences, pay boo koo bucks, cause these tickets are expensive and I wanted to have the same amount of spotlight on me as those people did as well.

So what I did, one day I was at a panel discussion and during Q&A I raised my hand. They called on me and before I launched into my question, I made sure to introduce myself. So I raised my hand. They’re like, you, what’s your question? I would say, hi, my name is Jessy Grossman. I’m the founder of a networking group called Women In Influencer Marketing. I am from New York. And my question is… Make sure you have an interesting question that’s relevant to the conversation. Hopefully will spark some sort of a dialogue if you could also infuse a little bit of your thoughts in it and just try to speak as like intelligently as possible, that’s even better, but by taking that moment and owning it and saying, I’m not on stage and I haven’t been invited, and no one really knows who I am right now, but I’m gonna take this moment to introduce myself to this entire group of people as if I deserve to be on that stage. I’m gonna do it. And I did.

And you know what happened, after I asked my question and got my question answered, there was like only one or two more questions left. And then people switched over from one panel to the next, I had a swarm of people who came up to me and were like, hey, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Molly, I’m Jonathan, I’m whatever. I heard that you said that you founded this networking group, or your question was so interesting. 

I can’t explain it guys. It was incredible. Like I felt as if I had made it onto that stage that I wasn’t invited to and I had this opportunity all of a sudden that people were coming to me to meet and how daunting it felt beforehand that like I was just one person in a sea of many who was just gonna get lost in not being able to connect with enough people from raising my hand and introducing myself and asking an articulate, interesting question, I then had people come to me as if I were someone on the fucking stage and I was not on the stage, I was just someone in the audience. 

So, I’ve actually instituted that tactic a few other times since at other conferences, and more or less got exactly the same result. The other tactic that I can share, like to parlay that is if you ask a question and they start to answer, or they’re answering the question and going back and forth and, give them time, be respectful, there is a reason that you’re in the audience and they’re on stage like I don’t wanna, monopolize a conversation or overstep a bound or anything like that. So let them answer it by all means, but if there’s a moment to interject, ask a follow up question or say you know what are your thoughts though?

I just think it’s such an opportunity to be able to be noticed, and in professional environments, whether you’re looking for a job at your current place of work, you’re looking for maybe a promotion, we have to feel comfortable, being noticed. That was something that I struggled with for years and no one has ever handed me an opportunity in my whole entire life.

I think that’s more or less a myth anyway, so sure maybe some people in this world are just handed opportunities. I think those are far and few between, and then I’m probably in the majority of people who weren’t handed anything and in order to get noticed, you have to feel comfortable putting yourself out there.

So that’s a little bit of advice that I can give to you that’s worked for me. So with all that being said, you guys, I have so many more tips that I can definitely give you on landing your dream job. Those are just a few, but those are some big ones.

If you have any other questions or comments, about this topic, definitely hit us up on Instagram. You could always send us a DM. I am Wiim, that’s I A M W I I M on Instagram. I would love to help you guys out. And again, this is just stuff that I’ve personally experienced, whether like I’ve been at that conference and it was a happy accident that I raised my hand, asked the question, people were interested in what I had to say, or I’ve been recruiting influencer marketers for the past like couple years, and I’ve definitely seen and observed a lot.

So I am more than happy to help you guys. I wanna help you guys, but you gotta raise your hand. So I hope this was helpful. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I hope you guys are enjoying your new year. And if you’re in LA tonight and it’s, the day this episode aired, I wanna see you guys at our LA experience.

It’s Iamwiim.com/events for that one. Our New York Experiences February 8th. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your weekends and I will see you next time.

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